A typical upright gaming machine comprises a cabinet and a main door which swings open on hinges to allow access to the interior of the cabinet. The main door may extend almost the entire length of the cabinet from its top to its bottom. In the middle of the door, there is usually a shelf area on which a number of control buttons are located for use by a player. Often, a bill acceptor is disposed beneath the shelf and a slot is provided in the shelf area allowing players to feed notes into the bill acceptor. It is common to have a door attached to the main door beneath the shelf, which is commonly referred to as a “belly door”. The belly door allows access to the interior of the lower part of the gaming machine without the need to open the main door. Also “artwork” for the machine is usually displayed in the belly door. The artwork for the belly door usually comprises a sheet of optical quality acrylic material on which a design identifying the game is screen printed. The artwork may be edge lit by a fluorescent tube which is usually mounted in an assembly fixed to one vertical edge of the artwork.
Some designs include a horizontally oriented tube. One problem which arises is that the bill acceptor depends down from the shelf behind the belly door and this prevents a horizontally mounted fluorescent light tube from extending from one horizontal end of the artwork to the other horizontal end. Because it is not possible to light the artwork between the artwork and the bill acceptor, there is typically a shadow behind the artwork where the bill acceptor is positioned.
In some gaming machines, two fluorescent light tubes are provided, one mounted in a horizontal orientation behind the artwork and one mounted in a vertical orientation behind the artwork. However, this still produces uneven lighting and in particular, produces “hot spots” which are more backlit than other areas of the artwork.
The vertically mounted fluorescent tube mounted to the edge of the artwork discussed above, provides more even lighting. The tube is enclosed in a chamber having a C shaped cross-section which pivots about a mounting fitted along one edge of the artwork. The fluorescent light is positioned close to one edge of the belly door. It is a difficult and fiddly process to pivot the chamber, disconnect and remove the fluorescent light and replace it with another tube. Typically, it can take an engineer 15 minutes to change the artwork and fluorescent light tube.
It is an object of the present invention to alleviate the above mentioned disadvantages of the prior art.